Marijuana clinic owner is arrested

LOS ANGELES — The owner of six Los Angeles-area medical-marijuana dispensaries was arrested by federal agents Tuesday after an investigation sparked by a traffic accident in which a motorist allegedly high on the dispensaries' products plowed into a parked sport-utility vehicle, killing the driver and paralyzing a California Highway Patrol officer.

After the Dec. 19, 2007, accident, investigators found "a large amount of marijuana and marijuana edibles" in the pickup driven by the suspect, Jeremy White, 20, according to federal authorities.

Investigators traced the marijuana to the Holistic Caregivers facility in Compton, one of six dispensaries owned and operated by Virgil Grant, 41.

Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents set up undercover buys at each of the facilities in which an operative with "no serious medical ailments" was sold medicinal marijuana, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Grant and his wife, Psytra Grant, 33, were arrested Tuesday at their home in Carson after being charged in a 41-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury last week.

The sale of marijuana for medical purposes is allowed under California law. But federal law bans its sale under any circumstances. Federal authorities tend to prosecute cases in which dispensaries are not in compliance with state law or in which there is some other aggravating factor.

White was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and is awaiting trial.